Over 1m t of sorted packaging and waste paper was collected from Austrian households in 2020, according to Austria's leading collection system for packaging, Altstoff Recycling Austria (ARA, Vienna; www.ara.at). It says the figures show that support for waste separation is high, even in times of crisis. In fact, the result is only 1% below the record volume collected the previous year (see Plasteurope.com of 10.01.2020).

In the field of light packaging (predominantly plastic), market leader ARA said it achieved an increase of 1%, with a total volume of 179,800 t. The collected volume of waste glass was 257,400 t, growth of 3.8%, while metal packaging also rose – by 1.7% to 30,900 t. This positive development, says ARA, is attributable among other things to the collection changeover in Vienna, to the joint collection of plastic bottles, beverage cartons and metal packaging. With waste paper, the negative trend of recent years continued: at 612,000 t, 3.8% less paper and printed products was collected for recycling than in 2019. On the other hand, because of the increasing use of digital media, there was a decline in the number of newspapers and magazines in circulation. In contrast, the amount of cardboard and paper board packaging increased due to the boom in online business.

ARA regards the Austrian system as the best-practice example in the EU. The fact that valuable raw materials are returned to the cycle strengthens the local economy and makes an important contribution to active climate protection, said ARA board members Christoph Scharff and Harald Hauke. The targets for the future have already been set: compliance with EU recycling quotas with the best solutions for the circular economy and the conservation of resources. For this, every piece of packaging should be returned for recycling.

Meanwhile, the Circular Economy index from ARAPlus and GfK showed last autumn that the confidence industry has in circular transformation is declining – especially among SMEs (see Plasteurope.com of 30.10.2020).

For 2021, ARA has announced stable rates for its license partners. The company said the pandemic had hit the industry hard, so there is no intention to raise the fees, even though the company – also due to Covid – had less license income, and the recycling revenues with plastic and paper were virtually at rock bottom.